


In Current Company

by Evilchuckles



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Humour, M/M, PWP, Romance, Smut, Trigger - Referenced attempted rape in the past, bad language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-08-01 03:51:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16277273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evilchuckles/pseuds/Evilchuckles
Summary: Sanzo is in a committed relationship with his hand but it looks like he's about to start being unfaithful.





	1. Chapter 1

As far as Sanzo was concerned masturbation was the only way to ensure sex with someone he respected. Otherwise there would be unsupportable possibilities of messy emotion flying all over the damn place like a toddler’s dinner. Fairly soon after reaching sexual maturity and discovering that, no, he wasn’t immune to sensual urges despite his best efforts, Sanzo had looked about him, seen that even if he could find a man he despised little enough to fuck, then that man might well blab or worse get _feelings_ for him, and Sanzo had concluded that the whole thing wasn’t worth bothering with. Not worth the risk. 

So he began a faithful and appreciative (if intermittent) relationship with his right hand. 

At least his right hand would never tell his subordinates at the temple what was going on.

And, later on the road west, there was a comfort in knowing that his right hand wasn’t going to leave him prey to mortifying comments from a certain pervert Kappa. Gojyo watched Sanzo like a hawk on all the many occasions when Sanzo got hit on in hotel bars, hoping that one day Sanzo would crack, clearly looking forward to triumphant mockery. Sanzo could almost hear it going through Goyjo’s mind, in anticipation; _ah, the great Sanzo! Human after all! You like it up the arse then do you, oh holy Sanzo?_

And that was the issue really. Sanzo wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure what he liked.

He’d never had a chance to find out. 

 

He knew what his right hand suddenly liked, though. It liked Hakkai.

This came as a nasty shock. He’d had no idea that it had even occurred to him until one night when he was indulging in a rare orgasm and the thought of Hakkai landed in his mind. 

Hakkai naked, in fact. 

Hakkai _hard_. 

Sanzo had spat all over his own stomach a panted moment later. 

And been in a foul mood for the rest of the month. Sexually attracted to Hakkai? Well that was just fucking fantastic. Of all the people for Sanzo’s libido to latch onto. Leaving aside Hakkai’s history (which, as far as Sanzo was concerned was just that, history) there was the fact that the man was, apparently, heterosexual, not to mention deeply repressed. Sanzo knew that he himself could be described as repressed (he’d actually _been_ described as such a few times but he saw to it that the describers always wished they’d kept their mouths shut), however Hakkai was surely in another league. Sanzo could feel the three foot wide brick walls all round that man’s mind. He’d helped to create them, in a way, by giving Hakkai a new life, a new name. That had probably contributed to Hakkai’s capacity for compartmentalising. 

There was the Hakkai as he was now. Serenely smiling, laundry folding, passive-aggressive tutting, Hakkai. 

And then there was the other man, from before. Kanan’s lover. 

And, somewhere between the two, there was the demon. A thing of fire and screaming and madness. At least for now. At least while the Minus Wave raged.

Sanzo realised early on, once his sexual attraction to the healer became depressingly clear, that he would probably never know the nature of Hakkai’s real lusts because it would hardly be difficult for Hakkai to construct yet another self to suppress it when it came to any sexual interests. Sanzo rather wished that he could do the same. It would be much easier to pack up his lust into a little box and hide it in the back of his mind somewhere.

Instead there it was, every time (and it wasn’t often) that he touched himself- the thought of Hakkai. 

Still, not being prone to wasting time being appalled at himself, Sanzo quickly got over it and decided that it was just the way things were. So he got off to the thought of Hakkai? So what? It could be worse.

He had the attraction under strict mental control when he wasn’t masturbating, so there was nothing to worry about, no chance of exposure.

 

Unfortunately he couldn’t keep it under control all the time. 

As he discovered one night in spring, halfway to India. 

 

He was dreaming. In his dream he was naked and so was Hakkai and this seemed normal enough. 

He was quite sanguine about that. 

Hakkai seemed to like it too, based on the way he jumped onto Sanzo’s body and ground him into the grass. 

Oh, they were outside? Sanzo had thought they were in a library but he must have been mistaken because suddenly there were trees. 

Never mind. No one said dreams had to make sense.

Hakkai’s mouth was hot, his tongue was feral. Sanzo moaned and clutched at leanly muscled arms, jerking his hips upwards.

Everything was just fine.

Until Sanzo woke himself up, mid-moan, to the echoing silence of the man sharing his hotel room. 

Which was, of course, Hakkai.

For the first time Sanzo wished Goku or Gojyo had shared with him instead. Even if they’d had to hear him groaning his way through a very nearly wet dream. That would have been fucking awful but it wouldn’t have been as bad as this. 

Sanzo lay very still, ignoring the erection he’d woken up with, and waited for Hakkai to politely go to sleep. Hakkai had excellent manners so there was no way he’d comment on his roommate having a sexual dream, no way he’d

“You were moaning my name,” Hakkai blurted in the dark.

So much for manners. “Was I? Whatever,” Sanzo said, hoping that would be it. 

“Why were you moaning my name?” Hakkai repeated. His voice was higher than usual, almost panicked. As though he was accusing Sanzo of something terrible. 

“I can’t remember,” Sanzo snapped. “Maybe in my dream you were being fucking annoying.”

“It wasn’t that kind of moaning.”

“How would you know?”

“I lived with Gojyo. He has an…active fantasy life and the walls were thin.”

Oh great, on top of everything else Sanzo was now stuck with that information. He couldn’t un-know it. It was there now. Gojyo wanking off and/or wet-dreaming despite surely knowing that his house-guest was probably able to hear him. The Kappa had no fucking shame. 

When Sanzo didn’t reply, because really what was there to say, Hakkai took an audible breath and said, “Sanzo, please don’t shoot me for asking but were you dreaming about me…romantically?”

“No.” 

Which was the absolute truth. There had been no romance whatsoever involved in what they’d been doing. Sanzo had _some_ standards after all, even when he was asleep.

“Let me re-phrase the question,” Hakkai tried again, voice still higher than usual but enunciating his words very carefully as though they were unexploded bombs. “Were you dreaming about you and I having sex?”

Sanzo sighed. Hakkai could be as stubborn as a mule when he chose to be, so honesty was probably the best policy if Sanzo wanted this conversation to end. 

“Yes I was. And?”

“Oh!”

There was a long silence during which Sanzo chewed his lip and stared sightlessly at the ceiling. He was still erect. It ought to have withered away by now because of the fucking pointlessly embarrassing conversation but somehow it hadn’t. Possibly Sanzo’s dick liked Hakkai’s voice too much for that. 

It just got worse and worse. His right hand and his pre-orgasmic brain liked Hakkai’s face and Hakkai’s body. And now Sanzo’s dick liked Hakkai’s voice. 

“Are you done with the stupid questions?” Sanzo said finally, when the silence grew too loud. 

“It happens to me too,” Hakkai’s voice again, very small now.

“What?”

“I dream about you. Like that.”

Sanzo sucked in a breath, stomach clenching with shock. Fuck…what the…? 

_Fuck_.

“Doesn’t matter,” he managed after a moment. 

“I’m so sorry. It’s disrespectful of me, but I’ve been attracted to you for a very long time, Sanzo.”

Sanzo didn’t have a clue how to respond to that without using bullets. 

“I feel very guilty about the whole thing,” Hakkai told him, across the space between their beds. 

Sanzo felt like Hakkai’s voice was slipping over the distance and sliding up Sanzo’s body, touching his skin. 

His dick throbbed. 

“What the hell is there to feel guilty about?” Sanzo heard himself say.

“Kanan.”

Oh.

Another lengthy silence. 

Sanzo was starting to feel quite pained. He’d been hard for twenty minutes at least and it was not comfortable. He needed to come so he could go to sleep and pretend none of this had happened. But there seemed no chance at all of Hakkai shutting the fuck up and going to sleep.

Sanzo wondered how quiet he could be. He’d learnt to be almost completely silent when he came. It was a crucial skill growing up pretty in a monastery, allowing him to indulge without being pestered by people wanting to join in. Maybe…

He tentatively ran a hand downwards, more to ease the pressure with a couple of strokes, than with the real intention of masturbating, but the bed made a sudden incriminating creak.

Why did Buddha fucking hate him? 

Face hot, Sanzo screwed his eyes shut and waited. 

Bang on time Hakkai’s breathless voice said, “Sanzo?”

“Shut up. Shut the fuck up.”

“It’s alright. You can…if you need to.”

“I said shut up!”

But something in Sanzo had crumbled. Something long fractured and barely holding together, finally pushed past its tolerances. He found that his hand was already moving back downwards, ignoring the creak that broadcast his activity as though it was being announced on a megaphone, and when he wrapped his fingers around himself he had to bite his lip against a sigh of relief. 

This couldn’t get any worse so he might as well.

He settled into a slow rhythm. Skin on flesh. Slightly damp. 

Hand shaking. Tiny noises of sheets moving, mattress sighing.

And the knowledge that Hakkai was in the next bed, unseen, but _listening_. 

With any luck Sanzo had never woken up at all and was dreaming all this because he knew he was going to be furious with himself in the morning. A lifetime of avoiding human entanglements and this was how he cracked? It was fucking humiliating.

And hotter than hell. He _liked_ it. He liked that Hakkai was here and that Hakkai knew what he was doing. 

He liked it even more when Hakkai’s bed started to make similar noises. 

“Fuck…” Sanzo moaned, nothing left to lose when it came to his dignity and at least Hakkai was in no position to mock him for it later. “Harder…” Not sure who he was talking to.

Hakkai gasped and the movements from his bed sped up. 

So did Sanzo’s. 

They were lying there, in separate beds, in the dark, jerking themselves off. It was ridiculous. It was profoundly unexpected. And it was intensely erotic because Sanzo knew what Hakkai was thinking. And Hakkai must surely know what was going through Sanzo’s mind too. 

They were thinking of each other. 

Of fucking each other. Of mouths and skin and cocks and fucking, fucking, deep and tight and wet. 

Sanzo arched upwards and groaned, coming to the heard sound of Hakkai’s pleasure and the known sound of Hakkai’s thoughts.

A moment later Hakkai whispered his name and made a deep, almost shocking, growling sound.

Then he was still.

Sanzo lay there and listened to his heart thudding. That hadn’t been terrible. All things considered. 

He wondered if Hakkai was having some sort of Kanan-induced guilt meltdown now, but he rather thought not. The truth probably was that Hakkai wasn’t ready for more than this, but that this was enough for now. Sanzo wasn’t about to complain. He wasn’t sure he was ready for more either. 

“Thank you,” Hakkai said at last, quietly.

“What for?”

“Letting me.”

“Humph.” Sanzo was surprised to discover that he was smiling.

“One day,” Hakkai said, hesitantly, “One day perhaps we could be…more?”

One day? Sanzo stretched his sated body and then shrugged. What the hell. 

“Perhaps,” he replied. 

As he drifted off to sleep he thought that he’d been right about masturbation. It was the only way to guarantee sex with someone he respected. 

Especially in current company.


	2. Chapter 2

Sanzo didn’t meet Hakkai’s eye for almost a month but Hakkai didn’t press the issue, thus proving that Sanzo hadn’t picked the _worst_ person to have a sexual loss of control with. Anyone else would have gloated or wanted to, ugh, talk about it. Sanzo didn’t want to talk about it. Sanzo didn’t want to think about it.

Sanzo would much prefer that it hadn’t happened at all. 

Even if it _had_ felt so intense, so arousing, that just the memory of lying there with Hakkai nearby, touching himself, listening to Hakkai come, made Sanzo hard. Made him stiff with blood and hunger and a painful sort of resentment. 

Sanzo shot at a passing tree to relieve his feelings. 

“What the hell did that tree do?” Gojyo asked, bemused, from the back seat. 

“It was annoying the crap out of me.”

“By standing there and being green?”

“Yes, and you also stand around annoying me so I suggest you shut the fuck up before I shoot you too.”

Gojyo snorted. 

Hakkai glanced at Sanzo out of the corner of his eye, as if he knew that Sanzo’s arboreal homicide wasn’t unconnected to his own recent behaviour, but wisely kept his mouth shut. His ability to know when to keep his mouth shut was one of the many things about Hakkai that Sanzo didn’t hate. 

 

That night they all got their own rooms in a half empty inn and this at least let Sanzo off having to find an excuse to share with Goku. It wasn’t easy to make it convincing after he’d refused to do so for the last two years, pointing out that Hakkai was a grown-up who thought of something _other_ than food and therefore much to be preferred as a roommate. Right now Sanzo preferred Goku as a roommate, complaints of hunger and a tendency to snore notwithstanding. Because when he shared with Goku, Sanzo didn’t spend most of the night hard and fighting a crazed idea to crawl into bed with him. 

Unlike when he shared with Hakkai lately. 

And it _was_ crazed. A bit of mucking around with masturbation was one thing, but the risks inherent in going to bed with Hakkai, properly, didn’t bear thinking about. Leaving aside the probable complications of embarking on a full sexual association with a member of the Ikkou (did he really want to be fighting alongside someone he was also fucking?), and the insupportable danger of Gojyo finding out and taking the piss until everyone was dead, the real issue was that it was _Hakkai_.

And Hakkai was, not to put too fine a point on it, a psychological clusterfuck. Sanzo had never been fooled by that serene countenance or those precise, controlled hands, or the way Hakkai seemed to think that life could be contained and sanitised by books and housework. 

Sanzo knew what lay underneath all that. 

Chaos. Grief. The sort of guilt that could corrode iron girders. And, based on who it was that Hakkai had loved in his youth, a disturbingly unconventional sense of sexual boundaries. 

But…Sanzo watched Hakkai finish his nightcap and start to lug his pack up the stairs to bed…there were other things in Hakkai. An earnest desire to be _better_ , to make amends, to care and be cared for, and a blazing intelligence that could leave people breathless. 

That left Sanzo breathless. 

Sanzo had always found intelligence more attractive than, for example, charm. He distrusted charm. It was too much like a lie. Plus, it was something he’d never mastered even when he was a boy and thought it might be in his interests. His father had told him that it didn’t matter, that not everyone was automatically relaxed or comfortable with other people, especially strangers. 

“People will earn your respect and you will earn theirs,” He’d said, when a very young Kouryuu had asked why making friends was necessary and why it was so difficult. “Perhaps you won’t have enormous numbers of friends, but they will be _real_ ones.”

He’d been kind enough not to point out what Sanzo now recognised, which was that he’d been shy.

He smirked grimly at what the Kappa would say if he realised that it wasn’t _all_ snarky rage at the world (although clearly it was that too, because the world seemed to be full of fucking idiots) but also a longstanding conviction that people were dangerous. Of course all shy people thought that people were dangerous, that they’d laugh at them or dislike them. Unfortunately Sanzo had spent enough time as a young man fighting off people intent on killing him, or worse, to know that it was also literally true. 

He realised that his thoughts were running in self indulgent circles, perhaps due to the whisky he was drinking, and with a self-disgusted grunt he put down his drink and went to bed. 

 

Sanzo started awake violently and wasn’t sure what had woken him until a howling noise came again through the wall. He blinked through a sleep-dulled brain for a moment until he remembered two things, one that Hakkai was in the next room, and two, that normal people didn’t take well to being woken by a screaming youkai in the middle of the night. It tended to draw public attention to four men who would really prefer not to be noticed, considering that the area was full of demons intent on getting the sutra and killing them all as an afterthought.

So he stormed next door, kicked Hakkai’s door in, and was on the bed with his hand over his mouth before a third howl could come. It was only then, seeing Hakkai’s confusion and half closed eyes, that Sanzo realised that it had been a nightmare and not a loss of limiters or something more serious.

He was about to start swearing at Hakkai with utter exasperation for waking him for only a fucking nightmare, when Hakkai’s hands came up to grip hard onto Sanzo’s waist. Sanzo was straddling him with one hand over Hakkai’s mouth and one braced on the bedrail. It had been the logical position to restrain Hakkai if he’d been having one of his more demonic moments.

Although it was odd, in those circumstances, that Sanzo had left his gun in his room. If he’d half expected to greet a dangerous youkai Hakkai, why hadn’t he brought his gun? 

“Shut the fuck up!” Sanzo hissed, taking refuge in comfortable anger. “You’ll wake half the town and have Kougaiji’s lot down on us.”

Hakkai’s body was shaking under Sanzo’s, eyes wild, pulse thumping visibly under his neck. It must have been one hell of a nightmare but, considering Hakkai’s past, he was probably spoilt for choice in that respect. 

Sanzo waited until Hakkai looked more awake, more aware of what was real and what was not, (or probably more accurately, what was in the past and what was now), and then took his hand away. 

“Are you done?” He demanded. “Can I go back to sleep now?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Meh.”

Sanzo went to climb off Hakkai but the hands on his waist tightened. 

His gaze snapped back to the man on the bed. The room wasn’t very dark, due to a streetlamp outside the window, and Hakkai’s expression was clear. 

Sanzo’s heart began to slam against his ribs. 

He knew that expression. He’d seen it before. 

Shortly before he’d had to shoot someone. 

“No,” he said, at once. 

“Sanzo…” 

“I…” Where were his words? Where was some easy insult or threat that would make Hakkai let him go? That would make him want Hakkai to let him go?

“Please, Sanzo, don’t go yet. I’m…” Hakkai bit his lip. “I don’t want to sleep alone again in case…” 

Sanzo sighed shakily but managed to turn it into irritation at the last moment. “Don’t be fucking ridiculous. You’re awake. The nightmare is over. If you go back to sleep now it’ll be a different dream.”

Hakkai’s quirk of lips was crooked. “That is not entirely comforting. I have many different dreams and they’re all as bad as each other.”

Sanzo wrenched his body out of Hakkai’s hands but instead of heading for the door hanging off its hinges, he found himself lying down next to Hakkai. “It’s like you’re an infant. If I stay here for awhile will you go back to sleep?”

Hakkai breathed out what sounded like relief. “I’ll try. Thank you, Sanzo.”

“Don’t thank me until I’ve decided whether I’ll tell the others about this in the morning.”

A tiny laugh shivered through the room. 

Gradually Hakkai’s breathing evened out. Sanzo felt the man’s body relax into the mattress beside him, while ironically Sanzo himself had never been more awake. He kept remembering Hakkai’s body beneath him, his hard grip, his wild eyes. Sanzo had been erect ever since Hakkai said his name.

Huh. This again? Really? For fuck’s sake… Sanzo’s fingers itched for his gun, except that he couldn’t work out how to shoot his own libido out. He resented his need for sex. He felt like lately it was trying to ruin his life. 

Once he was sure Hakkai was asleep (and showing no sign of another nightmare), Sanzo got up and went to the door.

And closed it, as best he could considering the now warped hinges. 

And went back to Hakkai.

That hadn’t been his intention when he stood up. It just happened. 

When the bed creaked and Sanzo pulled the blanket half over himself Hakkai’s sleepy voice said, “Sanzo?”

“Shut up.”

There was a long silence. Sanzo lay beside Hakkai, feeling the warmth radiating from his body, and tried to swallow down the hope that something other than sleep was going to occur. Why was he even here? He’d had a lifetime in training to ignore his body, to ignore minor distractions, to be able to stand aside from his baser urges. And yes, alright, he’d not bothered to apply that training to the things that made life worth living, namely booze and cigarettes and anger, but he’d certainly applied it to sex. Very successfully. Until now.

‘Damn you, Hakkai,’ he thought. ‘If I’d never got stuck with you I’d probably have got away with it for life.’

When Hakkai turned on his side and his hand came down hesitantly on Sanzo’s chest there was a sharp intake of breath, from someone or other. Sanzo shut his eyes and felt Hakkai’s fingers slide up his body to his neck, stroking his pulse point, tugging gently on his ear to turn Sanzo’s head, and then a warm mouth was pressed to his.

Sanzo’s hands had come up to grip Hakkai’s shoulders and for a moment he tensed to push him off, because in the past men who had kissed him had not intended to take ‘no’ for an answer. 

Instinctive anger ran through Sanzo’s body.

Until Hakkai titled his head and kissed him again, gently.

This was Sanzo’s first experience of gentleness. He didn’t despise it as much as he might have predicted.

Eventually they settled into a slow, delirious sort of rhythm of lips and mouths. Everything was quiet and soft, a weird counterpoint to everything else Sanzo had known for years, his life of sharp angles and the shatter-sound of bullets. He experimented in touching Hakkai’s hair, which was smooth and fine amongst his fingers. Then he let his hands roam down Hakkai’s body to his back, his hard chest, nipples stiff beneath worn cotton.

When Hakkai pressed closer, his erection digging into Sanzo’s hip, there was a dangerous moment when Sanzo clenched his fists in Hakkai’s shirt and almost pushed him away. 

Hakkai touched his mouth to Sanzo’s ear, whispered in a shaking, hungry, voice, “Only pleasure, I promise.”

Sanzo’s fingers relaxed, hesitated, and then slipped downwards to pull Hakkai’s shirt up and over his head. Hakkai raised his arms with a sigh and let Sanzo undress him. 

And, more surprisingly, Sanzo let Hakkai do the same. 

A few moments later, lying together side by side, their mouths kissing, their hands exploring, Sanzo reflected that nudity was a strange, variable, thing. He’d been naked before in front of Hakkai. In bath houses. In crowded living quarters. Injured, after battles, and bleeding all over the place. The Ikkou knew each other’s bodies well, strengths, weaknesses, scars and too-sharp ribs, because they were together all the time, like it or not. 

But it was different now. 

Hakkai hands, seen so often doing laundry, sewing holes in their clothes, wrapped around a steering wheel, had become something else. His fingers left trails of heat in their wake. He touched Sanzo’s body in a way Sanzo could never have touched his own, that made his cock throb, that made his breath quicken. 

Sanzo hated that he liked it. 

When Hakkai’s hands slipped lower, between Sanzo’s legs, Sanzo meant to say, “No, not that. Never that.” But it somehow came out as, “Some other time.”

He felt Hakkai catch his breath and then smile happily against Sanzo’s shoulder. “Will it be a long time until then?”

“Does it matter?” Sanzo asked, trying to sound like he knew what the hell he was doing. “There are other things.”

Hakkai raised his head, looked at Sanzo with an open smile that Sanzo had never seen on him before. A true smile. “Yes,” Hakkai nodded, his hand retreating from between Sanzo’s legs to close firmly around Sanzo’s cock, making him arch up with a gasp. “There are lots of other things.”

His confidence was annoying, it nearly made Sanzo do something to deliberately fuck it up like asking what had happened to Hakkai’s guilt, his thoughts of Kanan, entirely because Sanzo hated feeling off balance and at a disadvantage. Hakkai had fucked before. Sanzo hadn’t. It made him want to lash out, to regain equality. 

But he recognised that for the fear response it was and, on the whole, Sanzo didn’t do fear.

He got his revenge though, by tugging Hakkai unexpectedly onto him and arching his hips up, rubbing. Hakkai’s sudden agonised noise of pleasure made up for a lot. 

And somehow one thing led to another and before long Hakkai was thrusting against him, their bodies slick with sweat and need, their cocks rubbing together, moving smoothly against skin and firm, flat, bellies. Sanzo heard himself moaning almost continuously, from far away. Everything was wet and warm and blissfully winding tighter, everything was pleasured, not just his cock but all over, until he gave in and wrapped his legs around Hakkai’s waist. Hakkai sobbed for breath and thrust harder, thrusting Sanzo into the bed. 

Sanzo felt the shudder start in his gut and then roll right through him in almost painful waves, one after the other, going on and on, more intense and more satisfying than any orgasm he’d ever given himself. He threw his head back against the thin pillow and grit his teeth against a cry.

Afterwards he was still spiralling pleasure when Hakkai groaned his name, jerked against him, and then was still. 

Sanzo tried to be disgusted at the fact that he was slick with come, half of it Hakkai’s, but in truth the thought just made his spent cock twitch shamelessly. 

When Hakkai stopped panting he raised his head and kissed Sanzo’s mouth, whispering. “’One day’ arrived sooner than I expected.”

Sanzo shrugged and grinned. “Life is full of weirdness.”

“It is. That’s very true.”

“Now get off me.”

 

Sanzo went back to his own room before dawn, showered, got two hours sleep and then somehow he was back in jeep like any other day with Gojyo and Goku squabbling in the back and Hakkai driving, smile as calm and fake as ever. 

But occasionally their eyes would meet.

And Sanzo would remember what Hakkai was in the dark, naked, and hard, and moaning pleasure. 

 

That night they were forced to sleep outside, miles from any town. Fortunately it was summer so the complaining was minimal. 

After eating the stew Hakkai made, courtesy of the rabbit Goku snared, Sanzo took himself into the trees for a cigarette and some thought.

‘Am I doing this?’ He wondered. ‘Embarking on this damn fool affair with him?’

Unsurprisingly before long the man himself put in an appearance and they both ended up standing there, staring at each other. 

“Are we doing this?” Hakkai asked, in an eerie echo. 

“Doing what?” Playing for time.

“You and I. Because it would have to be everything, Sanzo. I can’t have half of you. I have some problems with…” Hakkai hesitated. “Emotional moderation.”

“You mean jealousy?” Sanzo asked, stubbing out his cigarette.

“Not exactly.” Hakkai moved towards him, expression worried, hopeful. “I just…don’t do half measures when I lo,”

Sanzo put his hand over Hakkai’s mouth. Not that. Not yet. He couldn’t hear it. 

Hakkai sighed against his fingers.

Sanzo bent his head and looked up into the sky, past the tree branches, up to stars and the deep black.

“My father always said,” Sanzo remarked. “That if you’re going to do something, do it properly, or not at all.”

He took his hand away and Hakkai smiled, beautifully, at him. He sort of made Sanzo feel sick.

And happy.

Which made him sicker.

“If you go all gooey on me I’ll shoot you,” he added.


	3. Chapter 3

It was late and Sanzo was exhausted. The only reason he was even in the bathroom bothering with a shower at all was because after a week sleeping on the road he felt filthy. He had made a point of having a shower rather than a bath however, due to the danger of falling asleep and drowning. 

He closed his eyes, hands braced on the tiles in front of him, water pounding onto his head, and groaned pleasure. A hot meal, a good brandy, two cigarettes, a long shower, then sleep. Fuck Nirvana because nothing could beat this. 

Apart from…but Hakkai had already disappeared to his room and so was probably unconscious by now so _that_ wasn’t going to happen. 

Sanzo’s dick twitched. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he demanded crossly, glancing downwards. 

It was a month since Sanzo had stopped kidding himself that he could be celibate when Hakkai was around but they had not spent the four weeks rolling around in bed like a couple of teenagers because, for a start, there hadn’t been many beds available lately in a sparsely populated region. And as usual people kept trying to kill them. And there was the small matter of twelve hour days spent travelling through rough terrain with regular battles. None of this made it easy to find opportunities for sex. 

Most of all there was the urgent need for secrecy. Sanzo had made it very clear to Hakkai that in Sanzo’s top 10 list of, ‘things that had better not ever fucking happen to me’, Gojyo Finding Out featured at number 2, shortly before Getting Myself Killed at number 3. 

Goku Finding Out came in at a close number 4. 

The thought of the mockery and the commentary and even perhaps the _advice_ that Gojyo finding out would leave Sanzo open to made his blood run cold. And it was a conversation with Goku that Sanzo hoped to avoid until at least one of them was dead.

Hakkai had accepted this.

Unfortunately this meant that sex couldn’t be indulged in even when there was a spare moment on the road, even if the other two were sound asleep on the other side of a campfire, because it wasn’t worth the risk of discovery. As far as Sanzo was concerned, anyway.

Still, Sanzo’s exhausted body was frustrated by the situation and seemed able to summon up the energy for an erection even now so he reluctantly decided that he had better deal with it. He wrapped his hand around himself and began to stroke, letting his mind wander, too tired to manage the mental editing he usually applied to his masturbatory imaginings. He thought of Hakkai. He thought of Hakkai naked, especially the muscles in his stomach. Something about them, about the way they moved firmly under scarred skin, tended to make Sanzo ache. Fuck only knew why.

He thought of the way Hakkai ran his hands over Sanzo’s body on the rare nights they’d been able to be alone together in the last month, the intense desire in Hakkai’s fingers as they stroked Sanzo’s nipples, his cock, the inside of Sanzo’s thighs. 

Sanzo clenched the hand resting against the shower tiles, the other moving quickly, gritting his teeth. He was close to orgasm already, balls drawn tight, and his mind slipped entirely out of his control as he barrelled towards the edge. 

Hakkai…Hakkai spreading Sanzo’s legs and taking him, fucking him, taking him deep. Hakkai, his dick hot and stiff, _thrusting_ …

Sanzo gasped and came hard with a wrenching spasm, splattering against the wall for a moment before the water washed it away. He hastily curled a hand around the shower pipe to steady himself, knees suddenly weak. Panting for breath. 

Fuck…this was ridiculous.

He really needed to get a lid on this particularly dangerous fantasy before it was too late. 

Before he let Hakkai do it in real life. 

 

Two days later Buddha decided to take matters out of Sanzo’s hands. 

Again.

 

There had been a vicious battle, worse than usual, all blood and flying entrails. Sanzo had found himself standing, dripping internal organs (not his, fortunately) at the end of it, looking for Hakkai amongst the bodies. Because Sanzo had seen him fall, out of the corner of his eye and hadn’t seen him get up again. 

Sanzo’s heart was in his fucking throat but he simply refused to accept the possibility that Hakkai might be dead. 

Gojyo was less stoic and was currently running towards various piles of corpses and searching through them, frantic.

“Maybe he chased one of the youkai?” Goku exclaimed, panicked, painfully hopeful. “I’ll look back along the road!” He pelted away at high speed. 

Sanzo closed his eyes, made himself think, made himself remember exactly where he’d been when he thought he’d seen Hakkai killed (no not killed, never killed) in the distance. 

Then he opened them and picked his way through the bodies towards the edge of the forest clearing. He tugged at a few youkai, kicked a few more aside, and _there_. 

Hakkai. 

Not moving. 

Sanzo knelt down and dug his fingers into Hakkai’s hair, pulling his head up. “ _Open your fucking eyes_ ,” he hissed. 

He’d never told Hakkai, but this was number 1 on Sanzo’s list of things that could never be allowed to happen. 

But then there was a gasp, a cough, and Hakkai’s bleary gaze staring up at him. 

Sanzo sucked in a breath and loosened his fingers, realising that he’d pulled some of Hakkai’s hair out in his…( _panic, fear, despair_ )…irritation. 

But all he said was, “On your feet, you malingering bastard.”

 

That night Sanzo thought ‘screw it’ and they went to the most expensive hotel in town. 

Dinner was loud and annoying, what with Goku and Gojyo both reacting to their relief about Hakkai by getting hyper and getting drunk, respectively. Hakkai himself just smiled quietly in a surprised sort of way, as if he hadn’t known that being thought dead would upset the others so much and was flattered. Sanzo rolled his eyes at this. Hakkai didn’t have a clue. Goku adored him, grateful for years of kindness and patient teaching, and Gojyo…well…he’d clearly decided years ago that not all brothers shared DNA. 

Sanzo was grateful that he himself had more emotional moderation and wasn’t making a fool of himself. 

Although he did keep having to tell himself to relax his grip. 

He’d inadvertently smashed two water glasses already. 

 

Later, after an hour in the bathhouse, Sanzo returned to his room and tried to read his newspaper. He succeeded in reading his newspaper. 

Unfortunately what he was reading was the same sentence, over and over and over again. And after fifteen minutes of this he still didn’t know what the sentence actually said. 

With a growl of disgust he threw the paper aside and lay back, staring at the ceiling and waiting to feel sleepy. 

He should be very sleepy.

It had been a hell of a fight. Worst one in months. He should be exhausted. 

But his mind raced. His mind replayed Hakkai falling, disappearing under a hail of attackers. The racing mind dragged Sanzo’s pulse along with it, making it speed, making it stutter, making it utterly impossible to sleep.

And that, of course, was the only reason Sanzo decided that he might as well go to Hakkai’s room and get off. 

So that he would be able to sleep. That’s all.

 

He didn’t knock. He just stalked in and kicked the door shut behind him. Hakkai was sat on the bed, bottle of disinfectant in hand, shirtless and rather bloody about the ribs. He blinked tired eyes in surprise.

“Sanzo!” He said, looking pleased. “I thought you’d be asleep.”

Sanzo shrugged, gaze dropping suspiciously to Hakkai’s chest. “You said you were alright,” he accused. 

“Oh, I’m fine. It’s only a scratch. You know how much small things can bleed sometimes,” Hakkai said. 

Sanzo sat on the bed, uninvited, and held out his hand. “Give it to me,” he ordered. 

Hakkai looked surprised again but handed over the bottle and some torn linen. 

Sanzo tipped the bottle onto the cloth, wrinkling his nose at the astringent smell. “The Kappa and the monkey were afraid you’d got yourself killed today,” he observed. 

“I don’t remember,” Hakkai told him, hissing when the wet cloth came into contact with his broken skin. “I think I was knocked unconscious and my attackers assumed I was dead.”

“They couldn’t find you.” Sanzo rubbed the cloth over Hakkai’s wound rather more roughly than he’d intended but he was angry. “You fell and you didn’t get up again.”

Hakkai didn’t speak for a moment. Sanzo finished disinfecting the cut and then tossed the cloth onto the floor. Hakkai applied a bandage and taped it down. 

Then he looked at Sanzo, eyes thoughtful. “Sanzo, did _you_ think I might be dead?”

Sanzo regarded him stonily, heart thudding. 

He found that he was clenching his fists again and so consciously uncurled them. 

Hakkai’s eyes immediately darted to his hands, then back to Sanzo’s face, visible understanding dawning. “I’m perfectly alright,” he said. 

“I know,” Sanzo snapped. 

Hakkai smiled, ruefully, and reached out a tentative hand to touch Sanzo’s cheek. Sanzo wrenched his head away at first but Hakkai, undaunted, only moved a little closer and tried again. 

This time Sanzo let him trail his fingers over Sanzo’s face, his jaw, his throat, tugging Sanzo towards him so that their foreheads touched. 

“I’m alright,” Hakkai whispered. 

Sanzo breathed out shakily.

And then they were kissing, hungrily, and Sanzo was pulling Hakkai down onto the sheets, his hands in Hakkai’s hair, tongues stroking. 

Sanzo was hard already.

He wanted to touch, touch everywhere, explore and examine, almost forensic in a sudden need to prove that every inch of Hakkai was warm and alive and safe. 

Sanzo’s resentment ate into his mind for a moment. This. This was what he’d feared would happen if he got involved with Hakkai. This compromising of his emotional control. This dangerous confusion between his safety and someone else’s; the way what happened to Hakkai had become so important to him. It was the most profound way to lose his independence and Sanzo saw what it laid him open to, the pain it might cause him one day.

One day if Hakkai didn't open his eyes. 

Sanzo decided, as Hakkai’s fingers slipped into his yukata, that there was one sure way to push such unpleasant realities to the back of his mind. The lesser of two evils.

“Fuck me,” he said, abruptly.

He felt the jerk of _want_ shudder right down Hakkai’s body. 

Hakkai raised his head, his mouth leaving Sanzo’s nipple, eyes wide, and breathed, “You mean…?”

Sanzo sighed, exasperation covering the bad memories stirred by his own request, “Which part of ‘fuck me’ isn’t clear?”

Hakkai inhaled sharply and his hands tightened on Sanzo’s body. Sanzo winced pleasurably. 

“Are you sure?” Hakkai asked, tugging Sanzo’s yukata off and running his gaze down to Sanzo’s cock as if to confirm to himself that Sanzo was turned on by the idea of being fucked and hadn’t suggested it for…some other reason. 

“No,” Sanzo said, shrugging. “But I’ll be sure to let you know if I change my mind.” 

Hakkai blinked and then laughed, breathlessly. 

Sanzo allowed himself a grudging smile.

 

Hakkai turned the lights down, despite Sanzo’s rolled eyes and accusations of romance, and took his clothes off. Sanzo, as usual, couldn’t help staring. Hakkai naked was an unconscionably arousing sight, all muscle, and skin, and hard cock. 

Sanzo liked it even more when that body was pressed along the length of his own, skin to skin, cock to cock, gently rubbing. He latched his hands onto Hakkai’s hips and closed his eyes, losing himself in the sensations, in the heat, and the taste of Hakkai’s mouth, the feel of his tongue licking softly between Sanzo’s lips.

Sanzo let Hakkai touch him, everywhere, let him smooth hunger into every part of him with reverent fingers. 

Hakkai always touched him as if he was holy. Sanzo still hadn’t quite got round to disabusing Hakkai of that notion. 

Well, Sanzo corrected, groaning, as Hakkai’s fingers found his hole and began to stroke it. Maybe not _holy_ , exactly.

When Hakkai slicked his fingers with lubricant that Sanzo hadn’t known Hakkai owned (a presumptuous assumption!) Sanzo abandoned all idea of being thought holy by this man, because Hakkai was slowly fucking him with his fingers, growls of pleasure stirring Sanzo’s hair, while lustful eyes ate up Sanzo’s whole world.

He’d never have predicted that Hakkai could look so possessive, so intent on something as untidy and visceral as sex.

“Sanzo,” Hakkai breathed, sliding his fingers deeper and smiling ecstatically at the moan he caused. “I want you. Let me?”

Sanzo was struggling to speak because the feeling of Hakkai’s fingers in his ass was weird, and dirty, and so fucking good that it metaphorically hurt. It also _literally_ hurt, but he wasn’t paying much attention to that aspect. “I already said yes, didn’t I?” He managed. “You can stop asking.”

But, somewhere deep, somewhere buried, he knew why Hakkai had asked again.

Because Hakkai knew, or suspected, about the past. Knew what this meant, and what they were risking. Knew that Sanzo might react with fear and violence, even now.

Sanzo pulled Hakkai’s head down with a none-too-gentle hand in his hair and looked at him, grinning, “What are you afraid of? I won’t shoot you. Probably.”

Hakkai laughed again and then, out of nowhere, “I love you.”

Sanzo’s smile faltered and he felt his stomach lurch. He had seen that declaration coming before now but had always been able to head it off. Now it was out there. 

They were just going to have to live with it.

There was no way on god’s earth that Sanzo was going to say something like that himself but some reaction seemed appropriate. 

So he shifted, Hakkai’s fingers slipping out of him, and then parted his thighs.

Defying himself. 

Hakkai bit his lip and closed his eyes for a moment. 

Then, before Sanzo could think better of the whole idea, Hakkai was between his legs and the head of his cock was slipping easily inside Sanzo’s body.

Easily at first, because after less than an inch Sanzo clamped down, involuntarily, instinctively, and Hakkai had to stop.

They were both panting. 

Sanzo screwed his eyes shut and bit into Hakkai’s shoulder, thinking that Hakkai’s failure to insult him with reassurance right now was a sign of the man’s intelligence.

Wordlessly, bodies shaking, they waited. 

Until finally Sanzo made himself relax and then it was too late because Hakkai was inside him. And Sanzo had finally let it happen. Finally let someone inside him, as so many had wanted to be, tried to be, so much so that they had attempted to achieve it by force.

Sanzo opened his eyes, to remind himself who was on top of him, and found Hakkai smiling in a stunned sort of way, lips parted to drag in breath. 

“Thank you,” Hakkai said, quietly. “You’re beautiful.”

Sanzo opened his mouth to give that the contemptuous response it deserved but then Hakkai moved, and Sanzo lost all his words. 

Fuck… _fuck_ …

It felt a lot less awful than Sanzo would have thought. It felt hot and stiff, and the friction was slickly maddening, pleasurable in a way nothing else had ever been, like something ancient and primal and right. Sanzo’s hips arched, unbidden, and it pushed Hakkai deeper. They both groaned.

And before long Hakkai was fucking him deeply, smoothly, with noises that made the hair stand up on the back of Sanzo’s neck. Thrusting harder when Sanzo’s lost control of his voice and hissed approval. 

It hurt, it felt strange, his ass stung, but Sanzo was on the verge of coming already because every time Hakkai moved he made fire churn in Sanzo’s belly, shivery heat that was almost unbearable, like the desperate tightening bliss of orgasm had been extended indefinitely. 

Sanzo chose not to hear his own voice calling out for more, deeper, harder.

He chose not to remember later the way he jerked his body to meet Hakkai’s fucking.

He chose not to notice Hakkai gasping triumph, and adoration, and masculine pride when Sanzo began to come, as it tore through him and hollowed out all thought, leaving only blissful sensation. 

And the echo of a cry.

 

He finally managed thought again a long time afterwards, in Hakkai’s arms, and the thought was, ‘that’s disgusting, I can feel him dripping out of me.’

Sanzo’s stomach lurched and his dick twitched. Hakkai must have felt it and looked at him, sleepy and curious.

Sanzo watched Hakkai’s sated, joyful, eyes for a moment and then grinned. He took Hakkai’s hand and moved it behind so that Hakkai could feel what he’d done.

Hakkai’s eyes widened and then he groaned. He buried his face in Sanzo’s neck, whispering things, unforgivable things, dangerous things. 

And Sanzo let him. 

For about a minute and a half.


End file.
